


the long arc of the sun towards spring

by Archaeopteryx



Series: Waiting For Rain [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Caretaking, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, First Aid, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Unresolved Romantic Tension, but then again so does everything else about Dedue's life, dedue character focus, dedue has trauma too, loving Dimitri does terrible things to Dedue's blood pressure, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21681169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx
Summary: Dedue stopped in the center of the floor, rubbed his knuckles against the scar at his temple, and drew a deep breath. Dimitri was not in his usual place — that only meant he was somewhere else. There was no cause to panic (not yet). Still …Dedue pressed a fist to his heart, and stared skyward. “Goddess of Fódlan, protect your son,” he said, not bothering to hide the bitter challenge in his voice. “Or we will all suffer for your negligence.”Dedue insists on caring for Dimitri after the battle at Gronder Field — for his own peace of mind, as well as Dimitri's wellbeing.Dimitri reevaluates his priorities, and renews an old promise.
Relationships: Dedue Molinaro & Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Series: Waiting For Rain [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687021
Comments: 20
Kudos: 214





	the long arc of the sun towards spring

**Author's Note:**

> This absolute beast of a thing has taken me weeks to complete. Greatest thanks to [pentagonbuddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentagonbuddy/pseuds/pentagonbuddy), without whose editing and encouragement I would never have seen this project through, and the [FE3H Rarepair Port](https://discord.gg/XB3fNjM) Discord server for being a wonderfully supportive and enthusiastic community.
> 
> I just love these two and their dynamic so much, guys. it's about the TENDERNESS! the DEVOTION! the COMMITMENT! they're in LOVE!

The fortress at Myrddin Bridge had no grand cathedral. Instead, a sturdy outbuilding served as a chapel, distinguished from the main structure by only a few bulky, snarling gargoyles. Cold evening rain pelted against the short walkway between buildings; Dedue pulled a fold of his scarf into a light hood, and tucked the wax paper securely around the plate in his hands.

“Your Highness,” he called as he crossed the threshold. Dimitri gave no response. “You need to — ”

Dimitri’s usual place before the altar stood unoccupied. Dedue’s gut lurched.

The chapel wasn’t large. There were only so many places a large man like Dimitri could hide himself, and all were empty.

Dedue stopped in the center of the floor, rubbed his knuckles against the scar at his temple, and drew a deep breath. Dimitri was not in his usual place — that only meant he was somewhere else. There was no cause to panic (not yet). Still … 

Dedue pressed a fist to his heart, and stared skyward. “Goddess of Fódlan, protect your son,” he said, not bothering to hide the bitter challenge in his voice. “Or we will all suffer for your negligence.”

He left the plate where Dimitri usually stood — trying not to feel like he was leaving a bowl out for an animal, or an offering for a ghost — and departed the chapel at a brisk walk.

The soldiers in the armory had not seen Dimitri. Neither had Mercedes, nor any other healer in the infirmary. The training hall was empty — strange not to see Felix there. At a loss, rapidly losing his grip on the flutter of his pulse in his throat, he checked the mess hall, where he found Ingrid and Ashe dining in uneasy quiet. Neither of them had seen Dimitri since the battle.

“I cannot find him," Dedue admitted, hands clasped behind his back to stop their shaking. Ashe and Ingrid exchanged a worried look.

"We'll help," Ashe said, rising from a half-finished meal. After a moment, Ingrid followed him. "Where have you looked?"

"The chapel, the armory, the infirmary, the training hall. Here. My next thought was to speak with the gatekeepers … "

"You think he might have left the fortress?" Ingrid asked. Dedue shook his head.

"I don't _know_." Some of the encroaching panic slipped into his voice. Ashe skirted the edge of the table and laid a hand on his elbow.

"We'll find him," Ashe said; his firm optimism blunted Dedue's nerves. " … he and Lord Rodrigue were close, weren't they? Could he have visited the mortuary?"

Ingrid winced. A chill shot down Dedue's spine. "I … hadn't thought to look there. I … "

Corpses shouldn't bother him. He'd seen enough, created more than a few — but his mind recoiled from the vision of a dark, cold room filled with the dead waiting for their final rites. He should have thought to look for Dimitri in the fortress mortuary, but — but he  _ could not _ face that many unbreathing, waxy faces. Not even for Dimitri's sake.

"I'll go," Ingrid said, jolting Dedue from the cycle he'd fallen into. "I should visit, anyway … say goodbye.”

“Right. Thanks, Ingrid. Let’s go talk to the gatekeepers, Dedue — that’s a good idea.” Ashe flashed Dedue a smile and tugged on his sleeve. Dedue shook himself, and let Ashe guide him from the mess hall.

The gatekeepers had not seen Dimitri leave the fortress (nor anyone they couldn't identify). Sylvain, slouched against the door to his shared quarters with Felix, hadn't seen him, though by the way he startled when Ashe called his name, he might have dozed off in the hallway. Ingrid caught up with them outside the door to the professor's quarters, her eyes glazed and bloodshot; she met Dedue's eyes, shook her head, then dove for the door to her own room.

"Thank you," Ashe called after her for both of them. Dedue needed another moment to clear his throat and unglue his tongue.

“You need not,” he began.

Ashe tucked a hand into Dedue's elbow. “I'm going to,” he said. “If his Highness is missing, it's everyone's concern. And you're my friend. I'll check on Ingrid later.”

Hearth-god forgive his ingratitude — Dedue forgot so easily that Ashe counted him as a friend. He’d known some of the Lions for barely a year before everything had gone so wrong, and he still struggled to fathom the impression he'd left on them. 

All the same — smoke burned in the back of his throat, and flames flickered in his mind's eye. Ashe had a gifted sensitivity, but now it only made Dedue feel claustrophobic, scrutinized. He cleared his throat. "Thank you, Ashe, but I can search for his Highness without help. Go to Ingrid. She shouldn’t be left to grieve alone.”

Ashe frowned at him, pale eyes narrowed and piercing. Dedue gazed back down at him until he sighed. “If you’re sure. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.”

“I will.” It was only half a lie. If —  _ if _ the visions wrought in fire were true, and the worst had happened — Dedue would want to be alone. Bear the loss of everything he’d hoped and worked for in private. And there  _ was no reason _ , yet, to assume the worst, so he crushed the dread stirring in his gut. “Give Ingrid my sympathies. Good night.”

“ … Good luck,” Ashe said as Dedue turned away. Dedue nodded over his shoulder, and did not stop.

Garreg Mach had been built upon itself through centuries of history, and in that time it had acquired all manner of architectural oddities: hidden rooms, secret passages, structural lacunae. The fortress at Myrddin Bridge held no such secrets — the simple, brutal structure served its purpose, and nothing more. Dimitri could not have disappeared like Flayn once had, ambushed and dragged into some long-forgotten oubliette.

So where  _ was _ he?

One by one, options vanished, until Dedue was left pacing outside the empty rooms nominally designated Dimitri's quarters. 

He buried his fingers in his scarf to keep from raking them through his hair. The fabric had long since lost its original smell, but he remembered — the strong, wrinkled hands of the woman who’d gifted it to him, the powerful herbal smell of the dyes lingering in the cloth, the lavender and vanilla sprigs the finished scarf had dried with — the sense-memory remained soothing, even when the material object smelled only of dust and sweat. He pressed the scarf against his nose and mouth, and did his best to breathe steadily.

If Dimitri had truly left the fortress, where would he have gone? Back into the wilds to fight a losing battle? Even grieving Lord Rodrigue, would he rather chase their vengeance alone than with an army at his back? Dedue had thought he had more reason than that — 

“Ah. Dedue.”

He whirled. The professor — he hardly saw them. His gaze caught on Dimitri, Dimitri,  _ Dimitri _ , soaked and limping. One arm draped around the professor’s shoulders; little else, it seemed, kept him upright. “Your Highness!”

Something glimmered in Dimitri’s eye. He shrugged off the professor, and staggered forward. Dedue leapt forward when he stumbled; Dimitri crumpled into his arms, and Dedue bore them both to the ground, careful with Dimitri’s shivering weight. 

“Is he hurt?” he asked the professor over Dimitri’s shoulder. Byleth shook their head. “What happened?”

“He took Rodrigue’s death harder than he let on. I found him. We spoke about it. I … think he’ll be alright. You can take him?”

The professor, too, was soaked. Their slack shoulders and dull eyes betrayed their own exhaustion. Dedue gathered Dimitri closer against his chest — to stave off a chill, he reasoned, but mostly for safety, for certainty. “Of course, Professor. Thank you. Rest well.”

The professor returned Dedue’s nod in silence. A trail of rainwater followed their trudging path back down the hallway. Dedue watched them leave, then turned his attention back to Dimitri (cold but solid in his arms, heavy in his steel armor, shivering with a damp chill. Alive. Safe).

"Sorry," Dimitri rasped.

"What for?"

Silence, filled only by the slow rise and fall of Dimitri's chest, long enough that Dedue wondered if he had fainted. He pressed his nose into Dimitri's dripping hair. "You are safe," he murmured. “Do not apologize for that.”

"Mh."

If Dimitri had any more to say, he gave no indication of it. Dedue gathered his legs beneath him, stood, and hauled Dimitri to his feet. "You're soaked," he said reproachfully. "And freezing."

"'m sorry," Dimitri mumbled into his shoulder.

" _ And _ you've been injured. You need to dry off, and you need rest."

"Mm."

This near-catatonia was hardly less disturbing than Dimitri’s hostile snapping and snarling, but they would be fine. Dimitri  _ must _ be fine. No harm would come to him, and Dedue would not let him harm himself, no matter how determined he seemed to be to neglect his health. "Come, your Highness," he said. "You will do no one any good if you fall ill."

Dimitri's breath fluttered against Dedue’s neck, slow and shallow. Step by step, Dedue shuffled him into his quarters, then stepped away to retrieve a change of clothes, clean bandages, a set of towels. Dimitri stood where he’d been left, dull-eyed, swaying on his feet. Unease crept into Dedue’s stomach as he watched, but there was nothing to be done for the moment, so he knelt to kindle a fire in the hearth. A damp chill of disuse hung in the room. Dimitri might rouse if he warmed up; at any rate, the cold could not be good for him.

The tinder smoked wetly at first, but it caught under the force of Dedue’s glare. A weak lick of flame slowly grew to a fire that could sustain itself — the air already felt a touch warmer, drier. Less oppressive, at least. Satisfied, Dedue stood, and turned back to the center of the room.

Dimitri still had not moved.

"Your Highness."

A spark of movement in that one blue eye, hollow and shadowed by sleepless nights, half-hidden behind limp locks of pale hair.

"You need to change your clothes. You cannot — " Dried blood clogged the seams in the armor, that old scratch on Dimitri's breastplate. Even on his worst days, Dedue had never known him to neglect his gear. He cared better for it than for his body, more often than not. If he had not even stopped to clean it — if he neglected even that … Dedue bit his tongue, reclaimed his composure. "I  _ will not let you _ sleep in your armor," he said. "Allow me — "

Dimitri leaned away when Dedue reached for him. His fingers scratched clumsily, uselessly at the clasp on his gauntlet. Dedue scowled.

" _Allow me_ ," he repeated, in a voice that would not tolerate argument. "You are not well. Let me care for you."

Dimitri's hands sank back to his sides. A lock of matted hair slid over his nose, deepening the hollow shadow around his eye. Like sand in an hourglass, he slipped out of reach, leaving Dedue clutching dust and broken glass. He would follow Dimitri to the ends of the earth, if he must; into death and beyond, into the flames of Seiros's faith. He would drag Dimitri out by his scruff and fight that god if she demanded a good man suffer more when he had suffered all his life. 

He could not follow Dimitri into his grief.

He could brace his hands on Dimitri's shoulders, and unclip that heavy boar-hide cloak. It stank of rust and animal, soaked through with rain. Mud and blood coated the fabric train and all but obscured the royal blue, but for now it was enough to hang it by the hearth to dry.

Piece by piece, Dedue peeled Dimitri out of his armor — breastplate, bracers, gauntlets, greaves. There was a soothing rhythm to it, the method and routine. One segment connected to the next. Each had its place against the wall. Cleaning it would be even more difficult once the blood had dried and set, but Dimitri, standing silent and unresisting as a doll or a dead man, took priority. (Every chance to touch him reminded Dedue that for now, at least, Dimitri was safe. That of all he had lost, of what little he had left, he had not yet lost this.)

In his armor, Dimitri cut an imposing figure. Blackened steel bulked out his silhouette and broadened his shoulders, a stark, bold shape even through rain or the thick mist off the Airmid River, a dark-pelted winter wolf crouched amidst the cathedral wreckage. Without it, he shrank — sagged as the weight left his back, as if the effort of bearing it had been his only reason to stand. Like a dog or a drowned man surfacing from deep water, he blinked, shuddered, shook himself. His eyes focused blearily, and he offered his forearms to let Dedue unbuckle his gauntlets. When Dedue turned back from setting them aside, Dimitri had pulled off his gambeson; he held it like a foreign object, blinking down at his hands without recognition.

Blood stained his undershirt.

The fabric was filthy, more brown than undyed off-white with crusted dirt and sweat, but a patch of fresh red spread down from his shoulder. "You're bleeding," Dedue said, nauseating cold lodged in his chest.

“I … ” Dimitri craned his neck to look, then winced. "Oh."

Dedue took a deep breath to steady his nerves. “I won’t force you to the infirmary at this hour, but at least let me bandage it.”

Dimitri bristled, jaw tight, shoulders bunched. “You’ve done enough.”

Dedue crossed his arms. “Your Highness, you are _bleeding_. Clearly I have not.”

“I can — ”

“Please.”

Dimitri stopped mid-word. His shoulders sank; he closed his mouth and turned his face away.

"I was … " Worried, concerned, alarmed; they were alone, so Dedue could be honest. " … frightened. I could not find you. No one had seen you since leaving the battlefield. I know how much Lord Rodrigue meant to you, and I feared … " His throat closed. Even with Dimitri here in front of him, the thought was too terrible to confront. "Please. For my sake, if not yours, let me do this for you."

Dimitri held his silence for a moment too long. " … if you wish."

The concession was enough. Dedue took the gambeson from Dimitri's hands to hang it up — even the quilted fabric dripped, sodden with rain and blood. Without the thick layers of his armor, Dimitri shivered in the puddle around his feet, shoulders hiked nearly to his ears. His arms, ghost-pale and bloodless, wrapped around his ribs.

All that could be fixed: water could be dried, dirt and blood cleaned away, wounds bandaged. A shattered heart would not mend so easily. Nine years had left Dedue with enough blunt and jagged edges to know.

He wet a towel in the washbasin, wrung it out, watched light play on the rippling surface. His hands were clean enough, but he scrubbed them anyway; in such a mood he always felt dried blood beneath his nails. He leaned over the basin until his nausea settled and his own face gazed hollow-eyed back at him. Splashed cold water against his face. Breathed.

Rodrigue had been a … kind man. He had been unfailingly polite when he visited Fhirdiad, with neither grit teeth nor suffocating pity. In the first days after — _after_ , Dedue had been told, the Lord Fraldarius had argued fiercely in favor of his place as Dimitri’s retainer. He had been closer with Dimitri, of course, but Dedue’s constant place by Dimitri’s shoulder had brought them into proximity with some frequency. His death ached in an old, scarred place at the base of Dedue’s chest … but he was dead, and Dimitri alive, and he would not begrudge Dedue attending first to the living.

Dedue gathered up the towels in hands heavy as lead, and turned — and froze, again, heart knotted in his throat. Dimitri had peeled off his undershirt, and … in the months since his return, had he not once seen Dimitri without his armor? He must not have, or the reality would not have struck him like an axe to the sternum. Had Dimitri slipped so far from his reach? Had the chasm yawned so far between them?

The open wound snarled, weeping blood, but that was hardly the worst of it. Ground-in strata of dirt and dried blood caked Dimitri's back. What skin showed beneath the grime stretched over the naked ridges of Dimitri's ribs and spine, fragile and translucent as that of a cave creature. New scars and half-healed wounds raked over the marks of the Tragedy, ragged where they had torn open, festered, begun to close, torn open again. Glaring sores seeped clear fluid where the straps of his armor had dug in and chafed over — hours, maybe days or weeks of ceaseless battle. Careless wounds that Dimitri at his best, Dimitri with a full range of vision, Dimitri with his comrades (with _Dedue_ ) at his side should never have suffered.

" … 'm sorry," Dimitri muttered into the silence. Muscle tensed along his spine, every line and fiber visible.

"What for, your Highne — ?"

"Don't."

Dedue closed his mouth, drew a breath through his nose. "What are you sorry for?"

"It's ugly."

"There is no such thing as a pretty wound."

"You know what I mean."

"I see injury that demands treatment," Dedue said, biting back his relief at an almost-familiar argument. "If it shames you to accept my help — "

"No," Dimitri said, low, rough.

"Then _sit_."

Dimitri sat. Dedue paused him with a hand on his shoulder, and spread one of the dry towels over the bedsheets: no need to give the launderers more work. (The ridges of Dimitri's collarbone, muscle, shoulderblade under his palm — solid. Still safe, for now. Not too far gone to reach.)

He left his hand on Dimitri's shoulder and sat behind him on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked beneath him. The mattress sank under his weight, which left Dimitri leaning closer to him than expected. A fluttering flush settled in the pit of Dedue's stomach — he set it firmly aside. He had greater concerns, like scouring the layers of filth from Dimitri's back. The gentlest touch with the wet cloth yanked a hiss or a flinch from Dimitri; even so, better pain now than a festering wound later.

"Why," Dedue asked, to distract himself from the painful ridges of Dimitri's bones and the waxy chill of his skin, "in five years, did you never seek out allies? Lord Rodrigue would have taken you in. Gautier or Galatea territory would have welcomed you. Helped you."

"Didn't need help."

"Your scars tell a different story." Dedue pressed his fingers to a ridge of tissue just below Dimitri's ribs, telling of a spear that had skewered Dimitri's side and only narrowly missed his vitals.

Dimitri's head sank even lower. "They would have slowed me down."

“Would you rather be patient, or dead?” An edge crept into Dedue’s voice. His grip tightened on Dimitri’s shoulder. Perhaps he was less gentle than he might have might have been while skirting the edges of Dimitri’s open wound, but when Dimitri hissed and drew his shoulders up, it was not from Dedue’s attention.

“What was I to do? You were gone.”

“I did not give my life so you might throw yours away,” Dedue snapped. Dimitri flinched, but Dedue could not bite back what he’d said, nor could he regret throwing Dimitri’s words back at him.

The silence stretched thin but refused to break. The cloth had grown so dirty it did little more than relocate the grime, which gave Dedue an excuse to rise, fetch a clean one, and quell some of the hot, sick anger crawling up his throat. He scrubbed his hands again — this time, there was even some blood to clean, Dimitri’s or some anonymous soldier’s he couldn’t tell.

When he turned back from the washbasin, he found Dimitri watching him, lone eye bright and distant as Sothis’s star. Dimitri said nothing, so neither did Dedue as he crossed back to the bed and reclaimed his seat.

The second, clean cloth finished the work, at least enough to keep until morning. Fresh blood welled sluggishly from Dimitri’s wound, but better that than leaving it clotted with dirt. Dedue pressed some folded gauze against it, and finally had to break the silence. “Raise your arms. I’ll bandage the wound.”

For once, Dimitri obliged without argument.

To secure the linen against Dimitri’s shoulder, Dedue needed to wrap it around Dimitri’s front, which meant leaning forward until his chest nearly brushed Dimitri’s back, and reaching around Dimitri’s ribs. If his heart skipped a beat, he crushed that feeling into the back of his mind, and forced his breathing to remain slow and steady — a mistake. Dedue wrinkled his nose and stifled a cough.

“That will hold for now,” he said once he’d cinched the bandage into place and straightened for a breath of fresh air. “Visit the infirmary in the morning. That wound has been open and dirty for too long. And you need a bath.”

“Mh.” Dimitri had begun to waver, his head nodding in the silence. “ … later.”

So there was to be a later. Dedue released a breath he’d held for nearly two months. “Indeed. Rest, first, but see to it. That wound needs the care of a healer, and you’ll fall ill if you don’t clean yourself.”

Silence, again. Dedue began to wonder if Dimitri had dozed off sitting up. Then, with all the creaking strain of cold metal bending, Dimitri turned himself until they sat face-to-face. One long leg dangled off the edge of the bed; his other knee pressed against Dedue’s, and it was far less easy to shrug off the flush of warmth with Dimitri’s eye on his face. It was  _ impossible _ to ignore when Dimitri reached for one of Dedue’s hands and took it in both of his. 

Dimitri's battle-hardened fingers traced Dedue’s own calluses with feather-light delicacy. His fingertips settled just below Dedue’s palm, between the tendon of his wrist and the base of his thumb. Dedue opened his mouth, then closed it;  _ your Highness _ and  _ Dimitri _ warred in his throat, so he said nothing at all.

“You’re,” Dimitri said finally, soft and rasping, “alive.”

“What?” Shock brought the question out blunt and abrupt. Wounded, reproachful, Dedue added, “Of course I am. I promised you.”

Dimitri shook his head. His eye flicked up, searching Dedue’s face for — something, Dedue had no idea what. “I — cannot always remember. Some days I can hardly tell the living from the dead.”

What to say to that? How to answer? Dimitri was mad, of course. Dedue had known that since they’d met. No sane thirteen-year-old could have torn through four trained soldiers like tissue paper, then smiled and thrust out his bloodied hand to Dedue as if they'd met at the marketplace. Even so, to know that he'd slipped so far … “I am alive,” Dedue said again, at a loss. “As are you.”

"Mm. Some days I doubt even that." Dimitri’s gaze dropped back to their linked hands. His grip tightened, his fingers pressed against … ah, against Dedue’s pulse. Grief and worry knotted in Dedue’s throat. “ … I’m … not well.”

"I know," said Dedue. What else was there to say?

Dimitri sagged, hung his head. His dirty hair swept forward about his face, and he whispered, “I nearly … did something rash."

"What would you have done?”

“I meant to leave for Enbarr."

Enbarr.

"The professor stopped me," Dimitri added, as if that meant anything at all.

Dedue’s pulse thundered in his ears, and Dimitri hadn't recoiled in shock, but he could not feel his heart beat. Numbness welled up from his gut, flooded his chest, submerged his mouth and nose and spilled down into his hands. "Without me," he said.

Dimitri pressed the heel of one hand against his eye, head still bowed. "Alone," he said.

All the evening's terror roared back with the sweeping force of an avalanche. The word burst out, rough and forceful. " _Why?_ "

"Why? Dedue, you — I made you promise — "

"Not to throw my life away!" He'd raised his voice, he realized distantly, though his pounding heart nearly drowned out his shouting. "You think that gives you license to discard yours?"

"No! I — ”

“I would have gone with you in a heartbeat. Stood by your side. Protected you. You needed only say the word, so why — ”

“That is  _ why _ I didn’t tell you!” Dimitri snapped back. Dedue recoiled, stung; shock shattered the numbness of his anger. Tears glittered in Dimitri’s good eye — they had already spilled from his other one, tracked down the side of his nose. Judging by the hot blur around the edges of Dedue’s field of vision, he was in little better shape. Dimitri went on, his voice raw as broken ice. “You would have gone with me — I could not have  _ stopped _ you — how could I ask you to die for me, again?”

The fear coiled back in, and with it the anger. Nine years’ bitter grief and loneliness burned like bile in the back of Dedue’s mouth. “You think I saved you in Fhirdiad so you could die in Enbarr’s gutters?”

“I would have dragged you down with me — ”

“No.”

“Would you rather die with me than live?"

“I would rather die by your side — than live without hope,” Dedue said. His throat threatened to strangle, his breathing fast and ragged and rapidly escaping his control. He closed his hands around Dimitri’s wrists, needing an anchor, any reassurance that Dimitri would not, could not bolt for Enbarr or anywhere else, and leave Dedue alone to suffocate on grief. “What hope do I have, without you?”

Dimitri had the nerve to _smile_ , crooked and bittersweet, the first Dedue had seen in five years and some months. “Someone kept you safe and well those five years. And you … you left them behind for me. For the — the ruin that I am. I have nothing to my name but vengeance, but you — you found a home. Without me.”

“Fhirdiad,” Dedue growled, “is  _ not _ my home.”

Dimitri snapped his mouth shut. Dedue opened his to continue, but choked — he couldn’t hear, couldn’t think, over the roar of flames and hoofbeats — he blinked and, god of mercy, the tears spilled down his face like boiling acid. He hunched inward, bent his head to hide his face, wracked by weeping he could not stifle nor find words for. A fourteen-year-old child wailed in his heart, terrified, heartbroken, needing — needing — nothing he could give them, and then there was Dimitri, still, witness to this crumbling — 

Cold fingers curled around the back of Dedue’s neck. The feeling sliced through the heat-haze; he gasped, hiccupped, and let Dimitri pull his head against his shoulder.

"I'm — sorry," Dimitri murmured. His thumb rasped across the close-shaven hair at Dedue's temple, over the thin scar that trailed into his hairline. They might have been children again — Dedue weeping on Dimitri's shoulder, Dimitri's hands in his hair. He'd built his walls, donned his armor, pushed Dimitri away and locked him out and himself inside, but for now it all felt raw and fresh as if he was still fourteen, adrift and drowning with the whole world battering him from his only lifeline.

"I want to go home," he sobbed. Something old and scarred unknotted in his chest. Another wash of tears dripped down his face, this time from relief from a pain he'd forgotten until it stopped. "To a home no one can take from me. Where I can be safe with the people I know as my own. To Duscur. And I — ” He squeezed his eyes shut, turned his face into Dimitri’s shoulder, shuddered. “I would die for that. I want my home back. You _promised_."

"I … did," Dimitri murmured. "I did. I'm sorry, Dedue." He paused, quiet, and turned his head slightly so his voice hummed against Dedue's temple. "I'm so sorry. I've been so obsessed with my duty to the dead that I forgot my promises to the living."

Breathe.

Tension had lived between his shoulders since he'd awoken in Fhirdiad, unexpectedly alive, frantic for news of Dimitri besides a lying notice of execution. For five years it had never left him — not in the clinic, nor the bakery, nor the gardens, nor the forge. Finding Dimitri alive had done nothing to ease it, not with Dimitri consumed by his ghosts and obsessed with a charge towards Enbarr that could not possibly end in victory.

It broke like an ice sheet shattered by thaw. Dedue sagged into Dimitri's arms, drawing his first full breath in months. "I met you at the bridge," he rasped, “to make sure you remembered.” He swiped a hand across his face, though it did nothing to stop his tears. “I will see you crowned. One day I will see Duscur’s fields bloom again. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Swear it,” Dedue insisted; beneath the sweeping tide of relief he wasn’t done being angry. Dimitri straightened, swept his blond hair from his eye, and took both of Dedue’s hands in his. When Dedue looked up, Dimitri’s eye gleamed like it hadn’t in years — proud, _regal_ , never mind the shadows of sleepless nights or the hollows and ridges of near-starvation.

“I swear to you, Dedue Molinaro,” Dimitri said, quiet and firm in a way that shot straight to Dedue’s spine, “on my name, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, and my honor as the crown prince and rightful king of Faerghus — Duscur will belong to her people again. You will have your home, to stay or go as you please. When this war is over, and when I am crowned, I will see it done. My triumph will be your triumph, and my failure will be my death."

Dedue drew a long, slow, breath through his nose; released it carefully through his mouth; waited for his pulse to slow and soften. “Thank you,” he said, when he could speak without his voice quivering. He weighed his options, weighed the syllables. Careful with the all the meaning he held on his tongue, he added, “ … Dimitri.”

Color flushed in Dimitri’s face, down his neck, onto his chest. He smiled again, the expression clumsy and difficult with disuse. “Thank you, Dedue. For being honest with me. For being  _ angry _ with me. I’ve been … difficult these past months.”

“You could say that.”

Dimitri huffed. It was a feeble hint at a laugh. It might have been the first sun of spring. “Rodrigue told me to live for what I believe in. The professor said the same thing. I needed to hear it, but … I didn’t know how to move on from there. What to believe in, if not the voices of the dead.”

“And now?” Dedue asked. Fading unease still fluttered in his chest.

Dimitri’s hands tightened. “I believe in you,” he said. “In the promises I’ve made to you. In all that you deserve, and all that I owe you. In being worthy of the trust you place in me. In a world where I can be your friend, if you wish it, and you can be mine.”

Dedue softened despite himself, despite the tear-tracks drying on his face — not quite a smile, but the nearest expression that came naturally to him. A spark kindled beneath his weariness; warmth swelled in his chest, a determined hope he’d all but forgotten, and when he spoke, the intensity in his voice surprised him. “I will fight to see that day,” he said. “But it cannot come without you, so please — you  _ must _ be more careful — ”

Dimitri smiled back: a true smile, this time,  _ radiant _ despite the pain still carved around his eyes and so bright Dedue had to blink back tears. “At ease, Dedue. I will."

_ God of mercy_, Dedue had missed this side of Dimitri. He had known for years that Dimitri burned, but to find a wildfire where he had known a hearth had ached nonetheless. 

Night had settled in earnest, leaving the narrow fortress window pitch-black and the room lit only by firelight. Rain hammered against the ceiling, audible even through thick wood and stone. Inside, the hearth had at last warmed even the corners of the room. A few cobwebs still lurked in the shadows; Dedue eyed them darkly, but weariness weighed heavy on his bones, so — they could remain for now. Dimitri’s hands, finally warm, rested in his as if they belonged there. Dimitri’s bony knee pressed against Dedue’s shin. He would not tear himself from these simple comforts.

The air lay with a heavy, comfortable quiet, and Dedue found himself swallowing a yawn. Dimitri tilted his head, a fond crow's-foot wrinkle at the corner of his eye. “We're both in need of rest,” he said. “There's much to be done — I have more apologies to make — sacred Saints, we need to properly mourn Rodrigue — ”

“It will keep until tomorrow.”

" … right. As you sa-ay." A yawn caught Dimitri mid-word. Dedue covered another of his own in sympathy. "Sleep first."

The fire burned low in the hearth; Dedue half-stood, meaning to bank the coals, but stopped at Dimitri's hand on his arm.

"You're exhausted. More so than I am, I’d wager. Let me do this, at least."

How could Dedue argue with that? He let Dimitri reach the hearth before he rose and made his way to the washbasin. Cold water, cupped in his palms and splashed against his face, cleared away the tear-tracks and the fog. His exhausted emptiness filled with something bright as molten silver and sweet as hope. In the deepest of Dedue's secret hearts a shivering seedling raised its head; for the first time since his return, he almost believed the long nightmare might fade. Tomorrow would prove whether this would be a brief moment of lucidity or a lasting change, but … something in the air had shifted, too tangible for mere wishful thinking.

He turned, and found Dimitri watching him again, seated on the raised flagstones of the hearth. The poker rested across his lap; his fingers curled loose around its handle as they would on the hilt of a sword. Orange firelight cast his lone eye nearly black. Deep shadows hollowed the gaunt lines of his face and carved his expression like granite, but the warm glow returned some color to his features. Between that and the clean, undyed nightshirt, he looked like a new man … like a stranger.

A stranger Dedue might like to know, as well as he’d known a limping, wounded prince and a shattered beast-lord. A stranger Dedue might once again feel proud to fight beside.

Dedue cleared his throat. "Will you need anything else tonight, your Highness?"

Dimitri broke their gaze, and stared into the coals. “ … I would not ask this as your lord,” he murmured. “Not ask it of you as your prince, or your king.”

It had been such a strange night, Dedue hardly resisted the truth that seized his tongue. “You are a prince, your Highness, and you are the man to whom I’ve sworn my life, but you will never be  _ my _ prince.”

He had a moment to feel his pulse jump, and then Dimitri  _ looked _ at him, soft as the hearthlight, understanding what went unsaid. “Of course. Then … may I ask you as a friend?”

Friend — ? Dedue’s thoughts stumbled over the word as they always did, but off-balance as he was he found it in himself to reach for something strange, an anchor beyond the old shell of his armor. “You may,” he said.

Any shock of stale hoarfrost fear thawed in the glow of Dimitri’s uncertain smile. “ … stay?”

There was far too much weight on that question for a single word to bear. “I must sleep, myself,” Dedue pointed out, wincing even as the words left his mouth — could he have picked a more feeble protest?

“There’s enough bed for us both,” Dimitri said. He flushed crimson while Dedue floundered through all the possible meanings of  _ that _ statement. “Goddess, no! I didn’t mean — nothing like that. I wouldn’t ask that of you.”

Dedue didn’t  _ want _ to decline, exactly, but old worries haunted him as stubbornly as Dimitri’s ghosts. Remembering four years of dirty looks for even standing in Dimitri’s shadow, he couldn’t help but balk. “If anyone were to find out — ”

Dimitri’s eye snapped up to Dedue’s face, pinning him to the spot. “Then they will know there is no one safer nor more trustworthy by my side, and if they give you trouble I will shatter their sorry spines and hang them by their entrails,” he snarled.

Comforting to know he hadn’t changed completely. Dimitri had the grace to look sheepish as the flash of rage faded; Dedue offered him a soft smile. Dimitri’s rage could have destroyed them both, yet it remained one of his greatest strengths, something Dedue truly loved about him. An outlet, even vicarious, for all the fury that burned low and cold behind Dedue’s ribs.

“Then I will stay,” he murmured.

“Thank you — ” Dimitri’s gaze darted off, caught by something unseen on the floor. His shoulders tensed, the edges of the bone still painfully outlined by the low firelight and the thin linen shirt. “ — you don’t have to.”

Dedue inclined his head. “I will, all the same.”

“I — please — don’t go.” Dimitri spoke the last few words in a hoarse whisper directed into his knees. His hands twisted around the poker. "I don't want to — I cannot forget again. I  _ will not _ fail you. But my mind is not reliable, and the dead still haunt me, and they — they are so loud."

Dedue circled into Dimitri's field of vision with a light, measured step, and knelt before him. "Look at me, your Highness."

" _Must_ you," Dimitri whined, but he let Dedue tip his chin up with one hand. His eye glittered, feverish, frightened, so vulnerable, and —  _ present _ in a way that made Dedue's heart leap. Within reach, at last.

"I am here," Dedue said, firm as granite. "I will stay with you as many nights as you need me. I will not leave you."

"I can't fight them alone."

"Then you will not." Dedue's fingers brushed down Dimitri's arm and curled around the hand that held the poker. Gently, with persistence rather than force, he loosened Dimitri’s grasp and slipped the poker free. He released Dimitri’s chin to take the poker in his other hand, leaving their fingers linked. “Stand,” he said, and tugged Dimitri to his feet; Dedue led them through a few awkward dance steps to return the poker to its hook beside the hearth without releasing Dimitri’s hand. (Privately, his heart thrilled at the brief reversal — himself leading, Dimitri following.) 

"You're alive," Dimitri muttered, staring down at their linked hands. " _You're_ alive. I won't fail you."

"I won't let you," Dedue said. He wrapped his free arm around Dimitri's back, pulled him closer, held him safe. He could not protect Dimitri from his ghosts as he could defend against a blade, but nine years of battling his own doubts had not left him defenseless. "If you forget, I will remind you. If you are lost, I will find you. If you stray from the path, I will guide you back. And when the dead torment you — " His voice sank deep in his chest, rumbling and resonant with his own quiet fury — " _then I will speak louder_. You are a good man. You will be a good king. If the spirits that haunt you cannot respect your duties to the living, then they have nothing to say worth hearing, no matter whose faces they wear. That is my promise to you, by the brand of the Molinaro forge."

Dimitri sagged against his shoulder, shivering. “Thank you,” he croaked. “Thank you. Thank you.”

He ought to worry. He  _ did _ worry, still, for Dimitri’s wellbeing. He wasn’t  _ glad _ to feel Dimitri shake against him as if gripped by a fever — but he was relieved that Dimitri would let himself be held, would let Dedue hold him. Would admit to needing help, and ask for it.

“Sleep,” he murmured into Dimitri’s hair. “We are both weary. Rest, and I will be here when you wake.”

“Mhm.” Dimitri let Dedue shuffle him towards the bed, though he took the last few steps on his own and all but crumpled onto the sheets. He tucked his long legs up, half-curled on his side, back to the wall, and — weary as it was, Dedue’s heart skipped another beat at the sight of him, all his angles and sharp edges softened. Sweeter still, somehow both a terror and a comfort, to sit on the edge of the bed beside him and draw the covers over them both; to lean against the headboard, and let his nerves unwind, watching Dimitri breathe in the half-light.

Safe.

When he had convinced himself that no guard would burst in to condemn him the instant he relaxed, he settled back against the pillows and let his eyes drift closed. He’d thought Dimitri asleep, but perhaps not, or perhaps the movement had half-woken him — either way, Dimitri pressed his face into Dedue’s side and draped his arm over Dedue’s belly with a sleepy, contented sigh.

Dedue couldn’t bear to deny him that peace. If it warded off Dimitri’s nightmares, Dedue could swallow the lump in his throat (swallow the impulse to wrap his arm around Dimitri’s shoulders) and wait for his pulse to steady.

For the first time in five years, Dedue felt a future unfold before him. Both their homes might be out of reach for the moment, but they would not be so forever. They would reclaim Dimitri’s home and his birthright; then they would reclaim Dedue’s. Duscur would welcome her people, who would embrace her back. Even if Dedue stayed in Fhirdiad to protect that fragile peace, he could return there any time he wished.

At last — finally — he could believe that without doubt.


End file.
